


The Friend of a Friend

by Wikketkrikket



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Amnesia, M/M, Memory Loss, Mystery, The Binding AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23474857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wikketkrikket/pseuds/Wikketkrikket
Summary: Steve has been out sick for three months, and has lost almost all memory of the last six. On his first day back at school, Tony Stark talks to him. He noticed Steve was gone, and Steve has no idea why.(AU based on The Binding by Bridget Collins)
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> A confession: I am mostly posting this so my sister Radar_Girl can see it! If I update it will likely be in very short chapters like this one; but as always I make no guarantees because I am a disaster who can't work on a project consistently basically XD
> 
> If you haven't read The Binding you should! But it won't be required reading for this fic. If the currently hypothetical future chapters happen, all will be explained...

Part One

When Steve finally returned to school, there was a welcoming committee waiting by his locker. As soon as they saw him, his friends started whooping and cheering, stamping their feet, and generally making as much of a scene as they possibly could. Grinning despite himself, Steve slid his way between them towards his locker, his cheeks turning pink.

'Yes, yeah, alright, I'm here,' he said, trying to calm them down.

'Eh, who even missed you?' Bucky said, giving him a friendly shove in the shoulder. Steve suspected Bucky was the one behind all this. They lived in the same apartment block and it had been Bucky that gave him a ride in this morning. He'd made Steve wait in the car whilst he sent a text message, and now Steve had a good guess as to why.

'Definitely not Bucky, who wouldn't let anyone sit in your seat at lunch,' Sam said, smiling. 'For real though, I'm glad to see you back. You doing okay?'

'I'm fine, thanks,' Steve said, because that was the answer that would get people to leave him alone and let him get on with his life. The last of the fever had broken over a week ago, but it had left him feeling listless and empty, removed from everything. It was as if during the months he had lain unconscious, his life had been dipped in oil, and now everything just rolled off him without leaving a mark. He felt bereft, disconnected, and odd; but sitting around at home or in the hospital wasn't going to fix that. He had been sick, alternately delirious or unconscious, for the best part of three months; and the three or four months before that were a hazy blur in his memory, not quite clear. The loss of half a year was enough to screw anyone up, he figured. Either the feeling would pass with time or it wouldn't, but either way he had made up his mind to get on with it.

Steve looked round at his friends, feeling a warm appreciation settling in his stomach. Bucky, Sam, Natasha and Clint were all there, even though Clint had never been in school early enough for a pre-class hang out ever before. Peggy wasn't there, of course. Her exchange trip had finished at the end of last semester and she was back in England. He'd seen pictures of the going away party they had thrown her and thought he almost remembered it, but it didn't seem quite real. He half expected her to be there, tutting at him and upbraiding him for being so dramatic. Peggy, he figured, was the reason he kept finding himself looking for someone else even as his friends started to fill him in on all the gossip he'd missed. Steve did his best to listen.

When the bell finally rang, Steve insisted his friends go ahead. He needed a minute to get his bearings again, to prepare himself. His first class was English, and he thought the teacher would understand if he was tardy just this once. As the halls emptied around him, he treated himself to a few deep breaths, trying to shake off the weird feeling. Then he straightened up, slammed his locker shut, and turned towards class, only to be stopped in his tracks by a voice saying, 'Steve?'

It was said so quietly that if the corridor had still been full he would never have heard it. But he did, so he turned, and saw to his surprise that it was Tony Stark who had called him.

Everyone knew Tony, of course. He was rich, famous, a genius. The sort of kid the school liked to brag about having, the kid whose picture was on the front of every prospectus and advertisement, even though everyone knew he was only there because he had been thrown out of so many private schools for the rich elite that his parents had run out of other options. Steve didn't think they had ever even spoken before. They didn't have any classes together – heck, he wasn't sure Stark had classes with _anyone_ , apparently he was so far ahead of everyone else there a lot of his time was self-study – the thought made Steve realise how late he was to class, and how much make up work he was going to have to do, and his feet itched to leave. So he smiled and nodded to Stark, and would have walked away if he could, but Stark was still speaking to him.

'I thought you'd left,' Stark said. 'I thought – I didn't see you for months.'

'No, I was out sick,' Steve replied.

'Are you alright?'

'Yeah, better now, thanks,' Steve said. Stark was staring at him in a way that was making him distinctly uncomfortable, so he said, 'Well, I'd better get to class.'

'Right,' Tony said. 'Right.'

Steve felt his eyes watching him all the way down the hall.

***

At lunch there was cake and a paper sash saying _Back from the Dead!_ that they forced Steve to wear round his shoulders. He needed the lift in spirits after the morning he'd had. Missing six months of school in every subject at once was no joke.

'It's only the three months where you were sick,' Natasha said. 'I bet the other months are still in there somewhere, it'll come back to you.'

'Maybe,' Steve said, glumly.

'Don't worry, Stevie,' Bucky said. 'If it comes to it, you'll just have to repeat the year. Again.'

Steve groaned. He was already a year older than his peers, from way back in Elementary school where he'd missed most of second grade the first time round because of one illness after another. At least back then he'd had the silver lining that repeating the year put him in the same class as Bucky, already his best friend from playing together in the apartment building, but if it happened again it would put him behind them. Next year they would be seniors, they would graduate and go off to college without him while he was still stuck in high school with kids two years younger than him. It didn't bear thinking about.

'Hey, I can tutor you,' Clint grinned. 'Even my Ds are better than your Fs.'

'No way.'

'I never get to tutor anyone,' Clint sighed, but there was laughter in his eyes.

'I'll get through it somehow,' Steve sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in anticipation of the crick he would get there leaning over all those books every day. 'Even if I don't sleep the rest of the year.'

Something in the back of his mind associated the words with Tony Stark, who, now that Steve thought about it, had seemed pale and exhausted during their brief conversation that morning. The thought made him ask, 'Did something happen with Stark recently?'

His friends looked at each other, shrugged, shook their heads.

'I haven't heard anything, but we haven't spoken to him for a while,' Sam said. 'Why?'

'No reason, it's just, he spoke to me this morning... he'd noticed I was gone.'

'He got friendly with Peg during her last semester,' Bucky explained. 'He had lunch with us a couple of times, he was at her goodbye party and stuff. I don't think any of us have really spoken to him since she left, though.'

'Oh,' Steve said. So they'd been acquainted. He was a friend-of-a-friend. Steve guessed that would explain why Stark had noted his long absence. But the way Tony had said ' _Steve'_ , so quiet and desperate -

The world lurched unpleasantly, blacking out his vision for a second and releasing a wave of nausea so violent Steve had to cling to the table, jaw locked shut, to keep himself upright and vomit-free.

Maybe he wasn't as okay as he thought.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for exposition.

Part Two

The blank page stared back at Steve, utterly remorseless. He supposed he ought to be grateful that his English and History teachers had agreed he could use this for part of his make-up grade in both classes, but he _hated_ assignments like this. Helpless, he looked back at the question again, hoping it would make more sense.

_Imagine you are living in the 1700s. Write several diary entries detailing your decision to, and experience of, having your memories bound. (2500 – 3000 words)_

No, it was still infuriatingly vague.

His teachers had explained to him that they would be looking for different things when they marked. His English teacher would be assessing it as a creative writing piece, looking at how inventive he could be, marking for grammar and quality. His History teacher would be looking for accuracy, detail and facts about the social and legal history of binding. Steve wished he could have just done that part as an essay. He was never any good at creative writing anyway, but now it would probably drag his history mark down too if he couldn't think of any memories heinous enough that someone would choose to voluntarily have them removed.

Maybe he ought to just write about a real-life case. Not read an actual True Book, the kind of book that was someone's memories transferred to pages and imprisoned in covers – the idea revolted him – but read about them. Or maybe he didn't have to come up with something lurid and horrible; it could just be something ordinary enough, vaguely interesting enough, that someone desperate for money would have sold it to the Binders. Maybe his character witnessed a historic event? That might get him extra points with the History teacher anyway. He could write as a clerk or a servant or something around the signing of the declaration of independence, fallen on hard times and in need of a penny or two so badly that he'd give up part of his life.

It was no good. Steve just didn't get it. Here he was, with first hand knowledge of how horrible losing part of yourself was, and his teachers were asking him to pretend to be someone who _wanted_ this. It was fact, indisputable fact, that the Binders couldn't do anything to you without your consent; and fact too that there were hundreds, thousands, _millions_ of True Books in the world from before nations started banning the procedure around the start of the Twentieth Century, but Steve just didn't get _why_. Why would people willingly do this to themselves?

Some countries were starting to allow binding again for the purposes of therapy and in the treatment of trauma, and before he got sick Steve might have agreed, but now... it was like part of him was missing. The months before his illness were all but gone; just hazy, half-remembered things that glinted in the corners of his mind but vanished when he turned to look at them. His friends had told him about things he had done, shown him the pictures, and they were familiar, but not _there_. When he pressed them, they all agreed that he had been acting oddly during those months, not quite himself, but it was only in retrospect that they'd realised it was a sign he'd already been growing sick. His doctors told him not to worry about it, not to try and push himself into remembering, but they didn't know how frustrating it was to constantly feel as if the memories were just out of sight, round the corner or behind a wall, and not be able to reach them. If he had been bound, he wouldn't even have the glimpses; just a white fog of nothing. And now his teachers wanted him to pretend to be someone who volunteered for that? It was insensitive at best. He threw the assignment aside.

It was 5:30 in the afternoon. 10:30 at night in London. He should probably message Peggy before she fell asleep. It was something else he had been putting off, but right now it looked better than the homework. He didn't even really understand why he had put it off to begin with. Something hot and sad and uncomfortable just prickled in his gut every time he thought about talking to her. This time, he pushed the feeling down as best he could, and opened up a message window on his phone. He could do that, now. Apparently his ancient flip phone, inherited from his mom, had finally died sometime before he got sick and he'd finally upgraded to a smart phone.

There were no pictures on it. He'd checked.

 _ **Hi Peggy,**_ he typed. _**You still up?**_ The reply came at once.

**Steve! I'm awake. It's good to hear from you. I heard from Natasha you were back at school. How are you?**

_**I'm okay. Everything is still a bit fuzzy. How are you?** _

**I'm well. I'm sorry I wasn't there to make a fuss of you.**

_**More than enough fuss was made, believe me.** _

Peggy replied right away, Steve was sure of it, but he couldn't see it. Every time he tried, he found himself blinking, vision blurring, going black. His stomach was screwing itself up into a ball again. He tried to ignore it, tried to go back to the screen, but the effort of it made his whole body lurch like he was walking the deck of a sinking ship. He didn't even make it to the bin in the corner of his room before he threw up.

He stayed there, on his knees on his bedroom carpet, trying to get his breath back and waiting for the swinging nausea to pass. All he could think was that he needed to get it cleaned up before his mom got home from work, or there was no way she'd let him back to school tomorrow. He was probably being stupid, reckless with his health, but he didn't want to miss any more time, make people worry even more. So, as soon as he could move again, he fetched water and soap and carpet cleaner and scrubbed until the smell of vomit was gone. Then his mom got home, and they had dinner, and by the time they were done it would be past midnight for Peggy. Steve didn't bother to open their chat again.

***

Steve could feel the eyes boring into him, but didn't have the guts to turn round. He knew it was Stark watching him from the end of the hall, without quite knowing how he knew it. He carried on rummaging in his locker, trying to look busy.

The stare was turning into a glare. Steve could feel it burning into the back of his head, almost like his hair was starting to smoulder. What was Stark's problem? Had Steve been rude to him, not having a proper conversation yesterday? But according to his friends, none of them had been particularly close to Stark. Maybe something had happened before, before he went off sick, and now the shock of seeing him again had worn off, Stark was mad at him about it. Whatever his problem was, if he didn't pack it in soon, they were going to have a disagreement.

At least the contents of his locker were a distraction, almost like a time capsule of September to December, right before he got sick. Buried in the debris were movie tickets for films he didn't remember seeing, rubber vampire fangs from Halloween, a twist of shiny ribbon that had probably come off a Christmas present. He started scraping the rubbish out, screwing it into a ball.

'Good to have a clear out, huh?' Stark said, suddenly right next to him. Steve jumped, slammed his locker shut, and met Stark's glare with his own.

'Do we have an issue here?' Steve asked, pulling himself up to his full height. He had no patience for people who were pointlessly antagonistic.

'I don't know, Steve, do we?'

'Look, I don't remember anything after the summer, and I don't have time to deal with whatever this is. So unless you want to explain, drop the glaring.'

'Oh, I wouldn't want to take up your precious time, Steve. I know you need to throw out the trash.' Stark gestured at the scrunched up garbage in Steve's fist, then blinked rapidly. His expression changed to something Steve couldn't read as he darted forward, plucking the bit of ribbon out of the mess. 'You kept this?' He demanded. 'Steve... you kept it.'

Steve didn't answer right away. He couldn't. He was growing dizzy again, black prickling at the edge of his eyes, and he really didn't want to faint in front of Stark. He needed to shut this conversation down and go find somewhere to sit.

'Not on purpose,' he said. 'It was just buried in the junk.'

He was too busy trying to stay upright to watch Stark's expression, but he saw the scrap of ribbon drop to the floor, skittering in the dust. He looked up, annoyed that Stark wanted to make him pick up after him, but Stark's expression was stone cold.

'Alright,' he said. 'I'll leave you to get rid of your junk. I'll see you later, Steve.'

'What the hell is your problem?' Steve called after him.

'Nope, no problem,' Stark said. 'Not a care in the world, Cap.' With that, he rounded the corner out of sight.

Steve threw the rest of the rubbish from his locker away, but he left the ribbon where it had fallen. There was no way he was cleaning up Tony Stark's mess.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure about this fic... it feels too choppy with the short parts, and I feel like I'm doing too much 'and then x, y and z happened' rather than actually writing x, y and z. On the other hand I'm mainly writing this to explore the ideas and concept rather than actually write it if that makes sense? So basically imagine this is just a detailed plan/scrappy first draft??? I don't know, but enjoy!

Part Three

_Of course I knew who he was. I wasn't living under a rock. And, like everyone else, we googled him when he transferred into our school. I remember sitting there listening to Clint and Bucky reading off this long list on Wikipedia, all these awards and accomplishments and accolades,_ The Youngest Ever to do Everything, _and the rumours about what he had done to get thrown out of all these schools, and the more they read the more I kept thinking 'What is a guy like that doing in a place like this?'. And I was remembering this article I saw about him in Kid Science back when I was about eight or nine, and how obsessed with it I'd been because he'd just built this robot arm. I really thought he was going to change the world, that within like a few weeks we'd have robot servants to do everything. For a while I kept saying I wanted to be an inventor, until I realised it needed math and science. I think I just wanted to be like him. So I was sitting there in the cafeteria, thinking about him for the first time in years, and wondering what he was doing here, and hoping Bucky didn't remember the two months I was obsessed with him. Then he was at school and we didn't have any classes together and sometimes I'd see him at a distance in the hall but mostly our paths didn't cross and I sort of forgot about him until Peggy introduced us._

After just that one paragraph – run on, messy, disjointed and so very _Steve_ – the book was torn out of Tony's hands. It wasn't unexpected. Tony was a genius, more than capable of calculating risk, and he had known before he had broken into his father's study that he would inevitably get caught, but he'd had to know. He'd needed to understand.

When Howard had found out about them, Tony had begged him, desperately, not to kill Steve. When Steve had disappeared from school, Tony had assumed the worst until Howard had told him, sneering, to _stop snivelling_ and that Steve had just _gone away_. And Tony had clung onto that, desperate to believe it was true but never really being sure, until Steve suddenly turned up at school again, looking blank. He hadn't even needed to open his mouth for Tony to understand what this meant, what had happened. Steve had been bound. Tony didn't want to believe it, but it was so obviously true that he couldn't deny it; Steve had agreed to forget. He'd given everything up, and Tony didn't know _why_. The question was driving him crazy, going round and round in his head, over and over again so fast it was practically a buzzing, _why, why, why_.

There was nothing in the world that would have made Tony agree to give up the memory of Steve's smile, the smell of his jacket, the weight of his arm round Tony's shoulders. The sound their footsteps made in fallen leaves when there was no-one else around. The way Steve had looked so pleased with himself in the glimmer of Christmas lights, laughter in his voice as he said, _you gave it to me, no take backs now._ The heat of his skin beneath Tony's hands the first time they'd kissed, breathless and desperate, on the side of the river. At the time it had felt like that was the only moment they were ever going to get. It turned out they weren't far wrong, even if, for a few short weeks, they had dared to think differently.

'So you found it,' Howard said, throwing the book back into his safe, the gold embossed _Steven Grant Rogers_ on the spine catching the light before the heavy iron door slammed shut on it. 'Do you really feel any better for it, Tony? I was trying to protect you. He wanted to forget you.'

Tony's hands balled into fists. 'You made him do it,' he said. He was certain of it, even if he didn't know the details. Somehow, Howard had forced Steve. He must have done.

And yet, his father was just looking at him with something like pity in his eyes. 'You know it doesn't work unless the person being bound is willing,' he said, heavily. 'But you're not wrong. The truth is, I paid him to do it.'

Silence fell. He was waiting for Tony to react, to say something. Tony was waiting too. For the words to sink in, to be replaced with disbelief or anger, conviction that his dad was lying, _something_. It didn't come in time. Howard continued.

'I gave him twenty-five thousand dollars to forget,' Howard said. 'To be paid to his mother in a year's time. We arranged it all; she'd be contacted by a solicitor to say a long-lost relative had died and she was inheriting the money. It's not a fortune, but to him it was obviously enough.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'You see, Tony? This is why I don't want you getting yourself into these messes. He didn't care about you, he was just attracted to your money. I guarantee if it had gone on another few weeks he would have been threatening to go to the press with your little secret unless you paid him off.'

Tony remained silent. When he'd played this out in his mind, he'd assumed being caught would lead to a beating. This was worse. It couldn't be true, it couldn't be, but the proof was there in the safe. He'd held it in his hands just a moment before.

'Are you actually going to pay her?' Tony asked. For some reason it was all he could think of to ask.

Howard snorted. 'Of course not,' he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. 'I'm not paying out twenty-five grand because someone raised a whore instead of a son.'

'Are you talking about Steve or me?'

Howard glared at him coldly. 'I guess the answer to that is up to you.'

There was nothing else to say. Tony turned and left, leaving his heart in pieces behind him.

***

'I want you to meet my friends,' Peggy had said, when they sat out in on the back step of the Jarvis' cottage one afternoon. It was almost the end of summer, the sort of time where the heat was most intense at sunset, when Tony's skin Italian skin had tanned so brown that he _looked like a damn Mexican_ , according to his dad. Her grandparents were old friends of Jarvis' family, apparently, and so when she had come to do her year abroad she had come to the old gamekeeper cottage in the grounds of the Stark Mansion pretty regularly. Tony had liked her immediately. 'My year is almost over. I don't want you to be lonely when I'm gone.'

'You know I have other friends,' Tony pointed out. He was definitely popular, anyone in school would be glad to hang out with him. Okay, so, he had maybe four actual friend-friends, but still. Well, two, if you didn't count Ana and Jarvis. But definitely not none, which was the point here. 'Anyway, you aren't leaving until December. The _end_ of December.'

'Well, I want you to meet them,' Peggy said again. 'I'll introduce you when school starts again.'

'Do I have a choice?'

'Absolutely not.'

'Do you have an ulterior motive?'

'Naturally.'

'Do you want to share it with the group?'

'No,' she said, but then smirked at him. 'I suppose I'm just a romantic.'

 _Oh_. She wanted to set him up with the red-head girl she hung around with. Well, it made sense. People were always thinking he and Pepper were a thing. It was the natural assumption.

Trying to look unconcerned, he stretched himself out long, sprawling over the step and the path below, his feet nearly touching the edge of the perfectly maintained lawn. 'Let me guess, one of your friends is tall, curvaceous and has got legs a mile long?'

Peggy cocked her head, thinking. 'Tall, yes. Curvaceous, no. Legs, not particularly noticeable. Brunette with a cocksure grin and plenty of swagger, laughing eyes...'

Not the red head then. Tony frowned, trying to think of any other girls in the group, let alone any other brunettes. Peggy was the only brunette in that group. Was she – could she be - ? He turned to her with eyes full of panic, but before he could say anything she gently added, 'His name is Bucky.'

Oh.

'...I didn't know you knew that about me.'

'It wasn't difficult to work out. Not to anyone who actually knows you. Frankly I was fed up of waiting for you to tell me.'

'Oh. Sorry.'

'So you should be.'

A moment of not-uncomfortable silence, and then:

'So... this tall, dark and handsome. Is he...?'

'I don't know,' Peggy said, and turned to him with mischief in her eyes. 'I'd suggest there's only one way to find out.'

Tony sighed deeply, and allowed himself to slither off the step completely. 'You're going to be the death of me, Margaret Carter.'

He didn't know at the time how true it was. Just over a week later, she would introduce him to her friends, including Steve Rogers; a road which would lead Tony steadily to the best and worst days of his life.


End file.
